This page deals with the period beginning in late 1982, when I started messing around with modems. If you want to go back even earlier, check out the advertising and copywriting pages.
So......back to 1982.
Strinz Creative History Part OneThe House, the Osborne, and the Frozen North |
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Strinz Creative, Inc., is the product of two companies and a multitude of experiences predating both. This page deals with the period beginning in late 1982, when I started messing around with modems. If you want to go back even earlier, check out the advertising and copywriting pages. So......back to 1982.
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I (John Charles Strinz a.k.a. J. Charles Strinz a.k.a. Charles Strinz a.k.a. Chuck) have a BA in English and some credit toward my MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After working for advertising agencies and radio stations in Nebraska and Chicago, I have moved to Minneapolis/St. Paul and put in some time at Campbell-Mithun and Brandt/Barringman. Then it's on to freelance work with a lot of companies. And in that very very cold winter, I buy an Osborne computer, a modem, and a house. All of the ad agencies I work with have computers -- mostly Apple IIs, but there's the occasional IBM here and there -- and I'm lugging an Osborne and a NEC dot matrix printer from one client's office to the others'. Faxing is still a dream, a faint whisper in the most astute office managers' minds' ears, a thing some company named Qume is trying to corporalize as a practical working combot. |
 Self-mailer sent to Twin Cities ad agencies in the winter of 1981/82. |
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My mom once bought a used industrial ironing machine that stood about two feet high. It had a cylindrical roller in the middle that was about ten times as big as a toilet paper tube. Most fax machines of this time are reminiscent of it. But I have a computer and modem. My clients have computers. They should buy modems. How can I convince them? The recession-of-the-time is in full force. Mortgage rates hover around 17%. My house is mine under Contract For Deed with a balloon that explodes in two years. Rates and points are changing daily, sometimes several times a day, and at these numbers the percentages add up fast. By 1983, I was looking for a source of accurate home mortgage information. The newspaper publishes rates that are compiled every two weeks. Fat lot of good that did me ... or anybody, really. And that's when an unusually intelligent Realtor friend of mine made a life-changing observation.
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 Inside spread of brochure for the Financial Update Network, 1983 |
He suggested a need for a home mortgage reporting system that could be posted on a computer that could be accessed by other Realtors using their Texas Instrument Silent 700 terminals. Now cheezy, they were state-of-the-art then. Every Realtor had one to reach the Multiple Listing Service of homes on the market. How about using them to get mortgage information?
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A few bucks and a couple of focus groups later, Financial Update Network (FUN) was born. FUN What a goofy name for a serious business! I mean, it really was based on a seminal need, a financial focal point that's literally and figuratively the foundation of any serious fiscally sound personal future. I wanted to call it the Financial Update Network Data Service (FUNDS). That made some sense. The Realtors in my first focus group session said everybody they knew was used to three-letter names (e.g., MLS for the Multiple Listing Service). So FUN it was. Sort of.
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